Photo Palestinian families with the bodies of their relatives killed by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza. Israel’s army has been accused of stealing organs from the dead in Gaza by an NGO, which called for an independent international investigation.
Allegations that Israel harvested the organs of Palestinians, based on a true story published 15 years ago, have resurfaced as its war with Hamas continues.
YA Libnan Editorial
Officials in Gaza have accused Israel of harvesting organs from deceased Palestinians before handing them over, citing significant alterations.
According to the Gaza-based Palestinian news agency, examinations of bodies show that their shapes changed “significantly” due to the theft of vital organs from dead bodies.
Citing the Palestinian agency, converging media reports have emphasized that Israeli occupation forces handed bodies to Gaza-based health authorities without their names and without specifying where the bodies were collected.
Such acts have been repeated throughout the Israeli occupation forces’ war on Gaza, the statement added, criticizing the silence of international organizations operating in Gaza, including the international committee of the Red Cross.
Reports said that the bodies arrived in a container, some intact, while others were in pieces.
Upon the return of killed Palestinians’ bodies through the Karam Abu Salem border crossing on December 26, their organs were discovered to be missing, according to reports.
Israel’s army has been accused of stealing organs from the dead in Gaza by an NGO, which called for an independent international investigation.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said on Sunday it had “concerns” about possible organ theft from Palestinian corpses, following reports by medical professionals in Gaza who examined some bodies after they were released by Israel.
Last November, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor flagged similar concerns about alleged organ theft by Israeli forces. Medical professionals conducting examinations on the bodies of Palestinians returned by Israel reported, “evidence of organ theft, including missing cochleas and corneas as well as other vital organs like livers, kidneys, and hearts”.
Additionally, the organisation accused the Israeli army of exhuming bodies from graveyards.
This is not the first instance Israel has been accused of something of this nature. Over the years, the country has gained a reputation as an alleged hub for the illegal trade of human organs.
In her book ‘Over Their Dead Bodies’, Israeli doctor Meira Weiss alleged that organs were harvested from deceased Palestinians between 1996 and 2002. She asserted these organs were used for medical research at Israeli universities and were also transplanted into Israeli patients, as reported by Euronews.
In 2015, the chief Palestinian delegate at the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, flagged concerns about the organs of dead Palestinians being harvested by Israeli forces, Reuters reported.
In a letter to Security Council president Matthew Rycroft, he wrote, “After returning the seized bodies of Palestinians killed by the occupying forces through October, and following medical examinations, it has been reported that the bodies were returned with missing corneas and other organs.” In response, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations condemned the charges as anti-Semitic.
Israeli forces are seen at Bab al-Rahmeh cemetery in East Jerusalem on 10 December, 2017 [Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency]
A senior Israeli scientist has admitted that in the 1990s Israel routinely harvested organs from dead bodies without telling families. The revelation came from an interview with Dr. Yehuda Hiss, former head of the country’s Abu Kabir forensic institute, which was broadcast on Israel’s Channel 2 in February 2019.
In 2009, an interview with Dr. Yehuda Hiss—former head of the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute—was leaked. Recorded in 2000 by Nancy Scheper-Hughes—professor of anthropology at the University of California-Berkeley—Hiss said that pathologists at the institute took skin, corneas, bones and heart valves from the bodies of Israeli citizens, Israeli soldiers, Palestinians and immigrants, often without consent from the deceased’s family.
The release of Scheper-Hughes’ recording was in response to an article by Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. The publication featured interviews with Palestinians who alleged that young men from the West Bank and Gaza Strip were being killed by the Israeli military and their bodies returned with organs missing.
While Hiss was dismissed from the Abu Kabir Institute of Forensic Medicine, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported in 2015 that he had been paid as a witness by the Israeli Justice Ministry for his expertise in “important cases” since leaving the post.
Whatever was done was highly informal. No permission was asked from the family,” Hiss said.
A 2008 CNN investigation found much of the world’s illicit kidney trade could be linked to Israel, as per Nancy Scheper-Hughes, an anthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and the founder of a newsletter called ‘Organs Watch’.
Israel is the top in trafficking human organs
Scheper-Hughes, who was in the final stages of writing a book on organ trafficking at the time, asserted that, in the realm of black markets for human organs, “Israel is the top.” She emphasized the global reach of the issue, stating that it had ‘tentacles reaching out worldwide.’”
The Israeli military confirmed that organ harvesting took place, but that it ended in the 1990s.
“This activity ended a decade ago and does not happen any longer,” a spokesperson told Israel Channel 2.
Last November , supermodel Gigi Hadid was among the latest to share allegations that “Israeli authorities had harvested the organs of dead Palestinians, ” according to a November 27, Newsweek article .
Taking to Instagram, the model reshared a video by user Umme Murtaza (umme_murtazaa). In the clip, Murtaza told followers to “watch this disturbing video, where health officials admitted that Israeli authorities had harvested the organs of dead Palestinians for years without their consent.”
Since the October 7 attack by Hamas that killed roughly 1,139 Israelis, 0ver 24,000 Palestinian have been killed in subsequent Israel Defense Forces strikes in Gaza, according to the Associated Press and over 70% of the victims are women and children.
Even the dead are not left to rest in peace
According to video by CNN , the Israeli army is bulldozing Palestinian cemeteries and removing human remains.
Israel is thought to be the biggest hub for the illegal global trade in human organs, according to a 2008 investigation by CNN network, which also revealed that Israel participated in the theft of organs from dead Palestinians for illegal use.
Call for action
The silence of the international community about these allegations is alarming . It is time for the world community and specially the United Nations to set up an international tribunal to investigate this issue and to bring justice to victims of these international crimes.
At Ya Libnan we encourage our readers to raise awareness about the issue and call for international intervention. We also urge our readers to push their elected leaders to take action. Politicians can raise these issues and help to build international pressure for change.
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